Casting a vote FOR JUSTICE

Props. 34, 35 and 36 a step in right direction

California voters have an opportunity to significantly improve criminal justice in this state by ending what isn't working, punishing more harshly those who commit an unthinkable act and allowing judges to do their job.

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Posted Oct. 14, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Posted Oct. 14, 2012 at 12:01 AM

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California voters have an opportunity to significantly improve criminal justice in this state by ending what isn't working, punishing more harshly those who commit an unthinkable act and allowing judges to do their job.

Propositions 34, 35 and 36 all deserve a Yes vote.

Of the three initiatives, Proposition 34 is the highest profile because it deals with the most controversial issue: the death penalty.

It would end this state's farcical capital punishment sentence and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

As we have argued before, a no-hope life sentence is a slow motion death sentence. Actually, capital punishment in California already is a slow motion death sentence.

Since 1978, 14 inmates have been executed. In that same period there have been 84 other deaths among those on death row, most from natural causes.

The difference is the enormous cost state taxpayers bear to maintain this broken, seldom used punishment.

A recent study found that the state spends $184 million a year on death penalty cases and incarceration.

That same study, by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell, said taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978.

Four billion dollars and we've executed 14 men in 34 years. At that rate, how long will it take and how much will it cost to execute the 726 men and women on now California's death row?

These billions of tax dollars could be spent to hire teachers and firefighters and police officers.

In fact, Proposition 34 contains a $100 million in grants to local law enforcement agencies over the next four years.

Wouldn't it be better to have grant money to put more police on Stockton's streets than to keep wasting millions pretending we have capital punishment in California?

We make this plea for Proposition 34 not because of some moral revulsion to the death penalty.

While we fail to see any evidence of the penalty's deterrent effect, clearly there are just some criminals who deserve to die for what they've done.

But we are persuaded by pragmatics. So is former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti and more than 100 law enforcement officials statewide backing this proposition.

"The death penalty in California is broken and it is unfixable," Garcetti said.

We can't fix the death penalty but we can fix the problem. Proposition 34 does just that and deserves a Yes vote.

This initiative would sharply increase the punishment for human trafficking, both for labor trafficking and for sex trafficking.

There are federal and state laws against both forms of trafficking, but the state penalties are strangely light. For example, sex trafficking of an adult by force is punishable by only five years in prison and for a minor it's just eight years. This proposition would change the sentences to 20 years and life, respectively.

In addition to increasing the prison sentences for trafficking, Proposition 35 would increase the fines that could be imposed and directs that 70 percent of the money collected be used by public agencies and nonprofits to provide direct services to victims.

Organized opposition to this proposal is virtually nonexistent and for good reason. The penalties should increase for this heinous crime. A Yes vote on Proposition 35 does just that.

California has had a so-called three-strikes law since voters approved Proposition 184 in 1994, an initiative that reasonably targeted career criminals.

Unfortunately what's happened is that in thousands of cases - and at a cost of tens of millions of dollars - the law has scooped up an incarcerated nonviolent offenders. Most Californians believed the intent of the original proposition was to keep violent career offenders off the street.

Proposition 36 aims to tweak the three-strikes law by restoring the original intent of Proposition 184 by targeting felons who commit a third violent offense. How much sense does it make to sentence a person to a lengthy, sometimes life sentence to life for a nonviolent act ... even if that act is a third offense?

This is not to suggest there shouldn't be consequences for repeat offenders. Clearly there should be. This proposition puts the decision for what those consequences are more properly in the hands of the person we hire to make such judgments: the judge.

This proposition, it is estimated, will save about $100 million in unnecessary prison costs.

Our three-strikes law has removed and kept criminals off the streets. Let's just make sure we're keeping the most dangerous off the streets.